Who's calling who fat round here?

Nov 24 2005

Some 1 million adult New Yorkers are obese, but nearly two-thirds of them don't think they are.

According to a study released this week by the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, as many as 1 million adult New Yorkers are obese, but nearly two-thirds of them don't know it.

The obese account for about one in five New Yorkers, but only 39 percent described themselves as "very overweight," according to the report.

Even more of a worry was that two percent said they were very underweight, 1 percent said they were slightly underweight, 16 percent said they were just right and 42 percent said they were slightly overweight.

According to the report, on top of the 1 million obese citizens, another 2 million more New Yorkers are overweight, and one in five children in kindergarten is obese.

It seems that only 44 percent of the city's adults are at a healthy weight, and nearly 75 percent say they do not participate in any regular physical activity.

The figures show that New York City's adult obesity rate was 20 percent in 2003 compared with 23 percent nationwide in 2004, and the national average has nearly doubled from 12 percent in 1993.

The department says that overweight and obesity are defined by body mass index, or BMI, which is based on a person's weight, adjusted for height.

Being obese means having a BMI of 30 or greater, while being overweight means a BMI of more than 25 but less than 30.

A 5-foot, 10-inch (1.78-metre) man weighing 175 pounds (79 kg) would have a BMI of 25.1 and be considered overweight, according to the department.

If he weighed 210 pounds (95 kg), he would have a BMI of 30.1 and be obese.

The report was compiled from results of the department's 2002 and 2003 annual telephone surveys of some 10,000 adults.